02/07/2008 – Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder

Butterflies

Huge numbers yesterday on this walk, on some very quiet meadows at between 400 and 600m. First Gonepteryx rhamni, our Brimstone: Next is I think a Clouded Yellow, Colias croceus: Then Papilio machaon, macaón in Spanish, Common swallowtail and a host of other names in English. We saw a couple of dozen: A swallowtail story…

Basque Hell

This is the trailer (currently unsubtitled) for El infierno vasco, about the ethnic cleansing conducted by the nationalist government and the terrorists with a view to reducing the non-nationalist vote and thus achieving a pro-independence majority. The process, of which the latest episode is the removal of the constitutional right to use Spanish in schools,…

Pejorocracy, government of the worst

Michael Gilleland believes it was coined by Ezra Pound (“It occurs in one of the Pisan Cantos, dated 1948”). I wonder if the Spanish-speaking peoples, who have considerable experience in the field, may not have been first. José Ortega Munilla’s Chispas del yunque were published in ABC 1920-2, and in GBS’ useless snippet view he…